Businesswoman’s tour helps Kiwis find love, avoid scams

Once tricked out of $140,000 by an online dating scammer, Dr Jordan Alexander is turning her experience around by teaching others how to successfully find love online. 

A highly educated, successful businesswoman and mother of two, Jordan had decided to try looking for love online several years ago. 
“Like many busy people, I thought online dating would be the most efficient way of finding a partner. I’d heard positive stories of other people finding love that way. Well, in my first foray online I certainly found a fella and fell in love… but I also lost $140,000!”

Jordan unfortunately fell victim to a romance scam. Sadly, her experience isn’t unique. Netsafe data shows that for this year, until September, almost 8,000 New Zealanders reported an online scam, with more than $24.7 million lost to scammers. This is five times higher than last year and is only the scams that have been reported. 

Jordan decided to take the lemons life threw at her and make lemonade. Not only did she write a book about her experience called ‘I Love You… Send Money’, she also set up a company called Love Assist Associates earlier this year. Its vision is to ‘love assist’ one million people to find authentic love connections by 2025. 

The company provides coaching and ‘how to’ programs for online love-seekers. Demand for this kind of service is likely to grow – it’s estimated more than 70% of new relationships will start online by 2040.

Jordan and her team will be touring 13 towns and cities in the coming weeks offering a free three-hour seminar (valued at $395 per person) on how to be relationship ready and successfully navigate the world of online dating. The event brings together insights from the latest relationship research and neuroscience and covers everything from how to write an authentic profile that gets you noticed, to red flags from potential scammers. 

People who attend will come out with a better understanding of whether online dating is for them and if it is, how to take the next step.